Nótaí na nEagarthóirí: Editor’s Notes David Gardiner A tableau vivant is a “living picture.” It takes the meaningful moments of our lives and freezes them in time. In a way, a journal such as New Hibernia Review may be seen as a tableau vivant. At its best, New Hibernia Review captures moments. There are contemporary, recently lived moments such as are featured in our creative nonfiction. Similarly, our poetry captures lived moments and shares them as the best art does. And, of course, throughout our twenty-three-volume history, we have striven to be the journal of record of Irish Studies, accepting not only academic scholarship but investigations that will engage our wide readership and interest others as much as it interests us and sparks our intellect, as we hope it does for you as well. The mission of New Hibernia Review was established and defined at its foundation by my mentor, Dr. Thomas Dillon Redshaw. That mission has been furthered through the diligent fosterage of James Silas Rogers. It is tempting to introduce myself as new editor David Mikhail Gardiner, but in filling such shoes, I think it best to not use all of our middle names, regardless of their idiosyncrasies. As stated in the cover notes, our first new journal features the work of Dublin-born artist Karl Mullen. He describes The Táin, painted upon an antique edition of The Iliad, as a “story upon a story” with himself contributing. There’s a way in which that is the story of New Hibernia Review. We build upon the achievements of our predecessors. Eschewing Bernard of Chartres, I tend to gravitate toward Newton’s statement: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Noel and Liam Gallagher may have famously stolen that statement, but I am truly grateful in realizing that it is true. And I am truly grateful for the guidance and assistance that Thomas Dillon Redshaw and James Silas Rogers offer. The current issue of New Hibernia Review continues to bring our reader-ship what we believe is the best work in Irish Studies. Some of the editors have changed, but our mission has not. [End Page 5] ________ We begin with James Murphy’s tribute to the memory of his mother. It is a story of emigration, from Ireland and indeed from this earth, upon which we are all temporary inhabitants. Looking backward, Murphy provides a means of situating ourselves in the present as so many of us will deal with loss as an integral part of the human condition. Keelan Harkin deals with similar conflicts of loss. The stereotype of Protestant landowners versus Catholics is tested in Kate O’Brien’s work against “de Valera’s brand of patriarchal Catholicism.” In both cases, we witness a welcome challenge to our understandings of home and what it means to belong. One of our new editors and an accomplished translator, Frank Sewell, shares his rare and outstanding English versions of Maírtín Ó Direáin’s and Seán Ó Ríordáin’s poems from his previous and forthcoming works. Moving forward, New Hibernia Review will continue to feature the living tradition of the Irish language. To that end, “Bufló Bill Códai” also makes an appearance in this journal. Who knew that the hero of the American West was also a hero of the Gaelic League? But there have been stranger partnerships in Irish cultural politics, and we are grateful to share Patrick J. Mahoney’s work with you. In contemporary poetry, few writers have had more significant, quiet, and reasoned influence than former Ireland Chair of Poetry Paula Meehan. Wit Pietrzak investigates her work as it relates to the nature that we inhabit in Geomantic. Artfully investigating the “biosemiotics” of the work, Pietrzak presents a new approach to Meehan’s work that expands beyond the customary urban and/or gendered take. In presenting an ecocritical approach, “I Could Read It Like Leaves” explores a poetic influence that extends from the writings of Gary Snyder to glowworms. On December 30, 1982, Stewart Parker’s Joyce in June aired on BBC2. Featuring Stephen Rea and Gabriel Byrne...